New gameplay feedbacks since Beta 2

[TMarc]

It is also not possible to climb up a wooden slope, you can only slide down. Its then like a one-way slope

[SuperEd]

Timeattack-Obstacle opinion
My opinion as a hardcore timeattacker is that, new features, such as grappling and slide/slope, add to the game and can be mastered for a perfect result.

Walljump is cool aswell, but still seems to have a random component in the result of the jump, so you cant 100% a jump all the time (maybe its because it has to be completely precise, cant tell yet). I still like the feature fully except the part in which you cant gain full stamina over a whole surface IF there's a wall at the start of it, since, instead of starting off with stamina, you walljump unintentionally on it, which reduces the usable surface of the run.

Jumping instantly after landing, especially if you miniglided before landing, is so hard now. Dont know the reason behind this, but it makes fence jumping / horizontal-grill jumping and rondin climbing quite a nuisance. Not like they're impossible now, but it makes a clear run with 0 respawns quite an impossible thing to do in some cases that, in comparison, were so possible, even easy, before. Also makes the offzone-layer-over-ground 'block' built with the toolmixer harder to deal with, since the way to bypass it was by instantly jumping before/as you land.

Trees arent climbable now. They were a nice obstacle imo and they're removed now. You can climb them, but not from the floor level, only once you reach the main branch or the place where you first jumped in before. I'd really want to see them back, at least in these 2 modes.

Rocketjumping in the running pads has been removed also, and that also added to the game. Its not a big issue, especially if you build maps knowing that, but it was useful to do in many situations.

Nucleus's exploding sound is very useful now for this modes, thanks a lot.

No complaints about the new blocks. Fun, diverse and jumpable/climbable

On a side note, some jumps that i could 100% before, and were height-reaching dependant, really drop down to almost a 0% now (i did 1 of them by gaining stamina+rj and reaching a non-flat surface by the skin of my teeth, the other one drops to a 20% and was stamina+rj and wallrockets on the side on a corner, to reach a 1blockhigh flat surface), but i dont know the reason behind this results.

Playability seems reduced now in some aspects, and improved in some others. Would like to see them only improved :S

[Leavzou]

Miss distance : When you know the hitboxes and netcode quality, you don't understand the point of this system wich is not accurate at all. Yes it's good for entertainement, but it's wrong 90% of the time because of the techical issues of the game.

Progressive jump : Honestly I don't really know what to think about that. When it will be mastered, we will see a lot less people taking risks by jumping high and take air rockets that are good for spectators. It's also the end of one of the only tactical choices wich is "jump and stamina or walk ?".

Wall jump : Very good, maybe some improvements in the code because you don't always understand when it does not work. The problem with this trick is that everything will be abusable in maps and if you want to prevent that, you will have to limit the possibilities and maybe "visual appealance" of the maps. Maybe cap the number of walljumps at 3 at a time ?

Bouncing rocket : The idea is really good. The problem is that in Elite it's impossible to stand for 5 seconds in a position where you can use these rockets in a good way (not only shooting them and see them boucing in the right direction hoping that it hits). You should lower the cooldown at 3 seconds with 3 rockets maximum when you are in this "mode", or maybe 2 seconds with 2 rockets, you get the idea.

Velocity/reload of rockets : Very good. You get a feeling of power that you did not have before. The "problem" is that rockets are way more efficient at long range and don't make the defensors want to take agressives positions, especially when you know that the attacker don't need to jump anymore to go away from close distance. This thing is balanced with the +0 mechanism.

+0 : : To be honnest, when you see two +0 then a +1 on the screen, it's kind of impressive and entertaining. This system also balance the rockets' up because you can defend yourself in long distances as a defensors. For the random aspect of it, we still need to figure out. Yes it prevent the defensor from getting killed if he hides behind his rockets (intentionaly or not), but it also works the other way around. The problem is that today, players only see the random aspect of it on the attacker point of view because everyone has the habbit of moving the crosshair out of the target when you see "+n" on the screen, wich is not the case for a defensor who shoot "whatever happening" on the screen. Whining about this only come from attackers that can't take rid of this bad habbit for now. And by the way, you need to change the color between +0 and +1 to avoid visual mistakes (for players as well as spectators)

Menus : Ugly as hell. And you still need 47 clicks to get into a server compared to other games. And I'm not even talking about the first time you launch the game.

Overall : Every idea has great potential, but most of them need some tweaks to be really interesting.

[SIMOON]

Walljump : Why not. It has been improved since the Elite exp.The problem, is on everymap, we can easy go on map's roof, which is forbiden in tournament. Walljump is cool, but seems useless.

Inertie : That sucks. Remember me Elite exp. Can't have required movements

+0 : I don't like ! It giving a more random part for the game. Can be funny in FFA but not in tournaent. I think we can still remove it in the server config. If you want to improve it, put the "+0" in red.

Miss distance :I like it. But it's not a really important update.

Progressive jumpss : Just remove it right now ! It's just horrible and random. How many time I coudln't jump a single step because of this shit ... If you want to keep it, please use 2 differents key. One for jump and another for progressive jump. So people can use it or not.

Menus : It's fast. I don't care about the rest.

Sounds : You promise you will delete this storm sound, but you add a jungle sound... Awefull

Netcode : It's more an Alpha 3.0 than a Beta 2.0

[hybr1d]

Walljump : very great new feature but need to be improve (limit the nb of jumps, kinda random-> 1 time you jump streight, an other, on the left,.... )

Inertie : Movements are now really fluent, maybe too much

+0 : its kinda dissapointing when you do only +0 and dont kill anybody in the round but i like the way that add more actions in the game and not only +1,+1,+1, attack won.

Miss distance : I think nobody really cares except casters, so keep it, it gaves more entertainement.

Progressive jumpss : Just remove it right now ! It's just horrible and random. (really)

Menus : It's fast. Maybe you need to do some changes (grey borders,...), dont really care about the rest.

Sounds : We dont hear anything! Its now impossible to know where the opposent is with the actual sound, but the new ambiant sound is great

Netcode : still need to be improve

+ please hurry about the lags since b2!!

[Kraguesh]

I find 2 real problems.


+0 : In the first time, it was a good idea, but in elite, this addition is just too random. Some casu can win games just with this things, and unintentionally. It's an other difficulty for the attacker. Already the rockets go faster, with the cancel rox, it's worse.

the sound : I found ,in the beta 1, sound was poor (hard to know the location of sound, not loud enough), but now... no sound over 1m. Hard to brain without it in competition.

Finally, it's not a problem, but the regulation of the jump, in the end, I don't know if this is a good idea... too hard to implement.
But this Beta is is really good aside these problems.

[adsun]

Movement:
I do really enjoy all the movement tweaks that came with beta2. It feels more direct, the progressive jump feels alright after you get used to it. The walljump is a lot better than it was in elite exp before B2 but still feels a bit random in some situations.

Blocks and Moves:
The new blocks and the new moves that come with them make SM finally to a fully grown shooter! I love the new scenery blocks and the slides, tech roads/bridges and last but not least the grappling hook add so much diversity to the gameplay !

Menus:
The menus look cleaner and faster now. I also do like the new cams in the background of SM and TM, flying through the clouds without ground.

I miss ManiaHome on the start page, but that way I use it more often while I am in a title to check what is going one. An option to put it back to the front page (just like stations) would be nice.

Titles:
Royal: I love the new tornado! Fits perfectly!

Exp: I feel like some of the custom objects in the exp titles (or new objects) should be included in the base title, SMStorm, just in order to give more players the opportunity to actually use them.

General feeling:
With B2 SM became a full shooter for me. I started getting bored by the same old castle maps with no nice scenery. All the new features chaged that.

Thats it for now, I forgot some things before I could write them down. Might edit this post later.

[kriouf]

Elite mod:

+0 sucks a lot, it makes the game SO RANDOM, defenser just need to spam to be protected, nice. and when you get a nice decal (it happens 6-7 times on attack ) you get +0 instead of kill.

80% of replays are buged, i cant watch them there is nothing on the time line. Nice.

Characters are still named vehicle in the menu.. and horns. Lol at this carelessness. its a mod or what ? did you work on this game more than 10 minuts per month on nadeo studio ?

We have lost a match cup 10min ago because on a very important attack my mate killed the last defenser, get the +1 and the rocket killed him after and lost the round. Its a joke. Imagine it on final with 30 000 euros cash prize ? tsss.

And i dont explain that alot of 30 to 50 meters shot on the head of the skin gave a +0 instead of +1. and you cant shot second rail at this distance, you are not still in the skin ITS UNBALANCED

All my mate are leaving me because these +0 and thes upgrade of randomness on the last beta patch.

SOUNDS: There is no sound on this game, are you joking ?

The reste is fine, nice maniaplanet, nice stuff, i think you work only on these things and you dont give a care to the elite mod.

[Talespin]

After a week of testing beta2 Elite, I honestly don't enjoy playing this game anymore with progressive jumps and +0's. Progressive jumps are just restrictive and annoying, something that wasn't needed at all and even breaks the risk/reward balance of starting sprints. Killing rockets with the laser adds such a huge luck factor to the game which is something you don't want in a competitive title.

Also, one of the biggest issue's hurting this games growth is how unorganized the UI is. I know tons of people that try to install the game but just get annoyed with the UI and trying to figure out how to play Elite or one of the other game modes.

[Frisco]

I agree with Talespin on most of the points he made about the recent changes. I personally am not enjoying the game as much with these new randomized factors in the game. At one point I would have been able to play Shootmania all day, but since the new beta 2 updates, the game has become unappealing and monotonous to play. I might add I do play Elite mainly, as I'm interested in the competitive aspect to shootmania. In my personal opinion, some of the changes don't bring anything to benefit the game, besides reward in the wrong places.

I really enjoy wall-jumping and the new rocket fire rate and speed, but there are some things that I would like to see changed/fixed. I will be writing these opinions based off of my experience with the new mechanics in elite.

Lasers vs Rockets
This new mechanic was interesting at first, but you can't ignore the random factor that it brings to the game. Although, maybe it makes the game more interesting to the viewers, when a random factor, like a defender being saved by spammed rockets, overcomes a should-have-been kill from the attacker, it becomes a very discouraging mechanic. The more skilled players will most likely develop the ability to marginalize the randomness to the mechanic, but newer players (inexperienced in how to move and aim properly) will most likely be discouraged by the mechanic when not rewarded with the rarity, in their case, that is killing a defender.

I don't know if the mechanic was supposed to benefit the defenders primarily, but to me that's what it seems. My suggestions are to: A) Have an initial length of time in which rockets will not be destroyed by lasers (1.5-2 seconds) This will allow an attacker to be rewarded by the corner close shots without being robbed by a defenders spam rocket. The mechanic will probably benefit the attacker if a change like this is implemented B) Have a rocket destruction consequence ( If the rocket is destroyed immediately after fired, the rockets bounce mechanic will activate and push the defender against the direction of the fired rocket) this will balance out the mechanic in my opinion by putting the defender out of position. C) Remove the mechanic completely. This will remove any randomness caused by the mechanic.


Variable Jumping

I am not a fan of this new mechanic. Again, it's a little random, but it is more controlled than the rocket shooting. I agree with what Talespin mentioned, it removes the risk-reward balance of jumping for sprint. Ultimately, again in my opinion, this mechanic is jut an annoyance and should just be removed completely, or changed drastically.

When I'm not playing elite I like to play the obstacle mode is Storm, and this mechanic makes some of the jumps impossible, like jumping on trees (A prevalent block in obstacle mod).


Audio

In beta 2 the distance in which you can hear another player was reduced, this was a mistake in my opinion and needs to be fixed ASAP.


In conclusion, I personally believe some of the steps taken for beta 2 were in the wrong direction, but some of them were great additions to the game. I would love to see some of the changes soon, because I loved to play shootmania before this update D: